


Waste More Idle Breath

by Thousand_Ribbons (Meridians_of_Madness)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Bathing/Washing, Crying, Dark, Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Dissociation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fights, Genital formation, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Cold Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Verbal Abuse, reverse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:00:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23941966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meridians_of_Madness/pseuds/Thousand_Ribbons
Summary: “You're out of miracles again, aren't you?” inquired Aziraphale with a false sympathy that almost looped back around to being real. “Poor little spendthrift. All alone on Earth, and run quite out of pin money.”Crowley bared his teeth at Aziraphale.“Piss off, demon. It's not like that.”“Oh? Then why did I find you with your skirts up and crying fit to kill in an alley?”-The angel Crowley suffers, and the demon Aziraphale mostly makes it worse until he doesn't.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 220





	Waste More Idle Breath

A human likely would have been unconscious now, so Crowley took the liberty of checking out for a bit as it all went on. He drifted, somewhere above and to the right, watching with a detached celestial interest as the human worked him over.

 _I liked that dress,_ Crowley thought dispassionately, and really, that was on him. Who told him to like things? Who told him to pick dresses off the rack with an eye towards this black or that cut? Who told him to miss things when they were gone or to mourn them as if they mattered?

No one, that's who. Really, this was on him.

He winced with sympathy as the human pushed his body hard into the corner formed by the brick wall and the skip, realizing that unless things went very wrong indeed, he would have to go back in to it, would have to deal with the scraped skin and bruises, everything else.

 _Come on, get it over with,_ he thought with a forced irritation. _The magazines say the average man only lasts six minutes. This is getting ridiculous._

Instead of listening to him, the human only went on, and on, and Crowley inspected the way his own head banged against the brick, how his eyes twitched under his eyelids as if he were dreaming.

 _Poor thing,_ he thought, and then there was a movement at the mouth of the alley.

“Well,” said a soft and curious voice. “What is _this_ all about?”

The man jerked back, and the shock pulled Crowley right back into his corporation well before he was ready for it. He went from pristine celestial indifference into a great and yawning roar of pain, and he crumpled straight to the ground, arms wrapped tight around his belly and head ducked down as if he could protect himself.

Aziraphale strolled down the alley as if he were at a book fair, looking around curiously, searching out anything that might be worth his precious time.

“My goodness,” he said, stopping just beside Crowley's shuddering form and the man who was stepping back from him. He looked from one to the other, and he smiled.

“Oh, you were _raping_ him,” he said. “How was that going for you?”

The human stuttered, and Aziraphale stepped forward, almost conspiratorial.

“Did you like it?” he asked softly. “Are you utterly delighted with what you've done?”

Crowley opened his eyes to see Aziraphale coming even closer, saw how he distorted space around him until the shadows bent towards him longingly and the light seemed to scuttle away.

“Aziraphale,” he tried, but his voice was only a croak.

“Tell me, did he feel good?” asked Aziraphale earnestly. “Is it all going to be worth it when I crack open your ribs and eat your heart? Will you think of how good it was to force him when I send you to my friends below?”

As slovenly as Aziraphale could be, he was usually fairly dedicated to maintaining his human guise. Otherwise, who would ever come eat with him at his favorite restaurants or sell him the books he loved or pet his hair the way he liked best? He was a demon who liked his bread buttered on both sides, and he could be incredibly charming when he wanted to be.

Now though, he wasn't blinking, and his eyes glinted a chemical red in the low light. His mouth was too full of long, thick teeth, and they weren't sharp, but they didn't have to be, not with all the strength he could bring to bear. He didn't care about being seen as a demon anymore because whoever was seeing him wouldn't be seeing much of anything on Earth for much longer, and Crowley forced himself forward, grabbing at Aziraphale's cold hand as he went by.

“My dear, you are a blessed nuisance,” said Aziraphale, not taking his eyes from the frozen man.

“Aziraphale, stop. You know you can't.”

“Indeed? _Do_ I know that?”

“You do. Just let him go.”

Aziraphale sighed, irritated but indulgent for the moment. He shrugged.

“I would run, if I were you,” he said to the human.

The man swore, and then darted past them to the mouth of the alley. At least, that was the plan until Aziraphale lashed out, for a split second not human at all, nothing but an impression of primordial rage, scales and appetite, and smashed him into the splintery pile of broken pallets opposite. Aziraphale turned, casually shielding Crowley from the mess he had made.

“All right then, dear – “

“You _know_ you can't do that! We can't interfere like –“

“Are you going to stop me?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley, still in the middle of staggering to his feet, looked away.

“You're out of miracles again, aren't you?” inquired Aziraphale with a false sympathy that almost looped back around to being real. “Poor little spendthrift. All alone on Earth, and run quite out of pin money.”

Crowley bared his teeth at Aziraphale.

“Piss off, demon. It's not like that.”

“Oh? Then why did I find you with your skirts up and crying fit to kill in an alley?”

Aziraphale's cruelty stuck Crowley like a blow to the chest, and in a fury, he drew back his fist and slammed it straight into Aziraphale's face. Aziraphale's head rocked back, and he turned slightly to spit the bloody mess on the wreck of a human behind him. The man groaned, and Crowley frowned.

“He's alive.”

“Just for you, darling,” Aziraphale said bitterly, putting his face back into good order. “Your little initiative continues intact.”

“You knew about that?”

“That Heaven wants to see how bloody bad it can get before a soul's irredeemable? Old news, Crowley, and stupid on top of it. You should have asked Hell. We've had some real bastards get away.”

“I'll be sure to pass that on.”

 _And maybe they'll listen this time instead of using me as a very convenient combination of guinea pig and honeypot,_ he carefully didn't say.

Crowley closed his eyes, sagging back against the wall. He raised his hand to put himself to rights, and then winced as he remembered all over again, yes, completely out. He could feel it in his bones when he thought about it, as if he had lost some kind of buffer between himself and the world. His powers weren't the only thing that made him divine, but they surely did help in just about every circumstance.

Crowley flinched back as Aziraphale came close and took his chin roughly in his fingers, turning his face towards the light. With his lip split and and his black eye, he knew he looked terrible, and Aziraphale bared his teeth before he remembered himself.

“What a mess you are, angel,” Aziraphale said, the violence just barely leashed in his voice. “Not so pretty anymore.”

“I don't mind that,” said Crowley with a shrug.

“I do. Come along, Anthony. Don't dawdle, I'm a very busy demon, and I haven't got all night to play with you.”

“Never asked you to,” Crowley started, but Aziraphale shook his head dismissively.

“What nonsense all of this is. And as I said, come along. I have much better things and people to be doing than you.”

Crowley was about to ask who specifically when Aziraphale stripped off his gray overcoat and draped it over Crowley with a surprisingly deft touch, not grazing Crowley's skin at all. The coat was a heavy thing, and Crowley was surrounded by the slightly acrid scents of burnt wool and fresh iron.

“And get this on. The last thing I need is someone thinking _I_ did this to you.”

“What, you wouldn't fancy a go? All the graffiti under the bridges say I'm a good time.”

Aziraphale's eyes flashed, and he pressed his mouth into a firm line before he responded.

“Crowley?”

“Hm?”

“If you say such a thing again, I will make what that pathetic mealworm did to you look like a _holiday.”_

It was a very real threat. While Crowley had forged half the paperwork that got him there, Aziraphale did claim nominal lordship over a district in the fifth circle in Hell, and he didn't hold it through civic meetings and a campaign to clean up the river of wrath. He was incredibly lazy, usually too slothful to be bothered, but he was bothered now, the recent bit of mayhem apparently inadequate to satisfy him.

He looked furious, fit to kill, and Crowley burst into laughter. It was a harsh and cawing sound that tore at his chest and ripped at his throat, hurt like the rest of him hurt. It was funny, after all, wasn't it? _So_ funny, that after all these years, after all these thousands of years, it was Aziraphale who showed. The demon didn't care, but he showed.

Aziraphale shook his head and gave him a disgusted once-over that only made Crowley laugh the harder.

“I will never know what goes through that empty bird brain of yours angel. Come on. I want to get home before it gets light.”

_Home_ was a fire trap of books, pamphlets, journals and tabloids all stacked up in towering piles in a Soho townhouse. The windows were boarded up so that dawn would never dare tiptoe in, and the dim lamps, lit with a snap of Aziraphale's fingers, made Crowley think of wartime, endless dull evening, endless winter. He shucked off Aziraphale's coat to hang it on a hook by the door, and he followed Aziraphale deeper into the the labyrinth of sad moldy old lies, as he had called it once.

He bumped into a pile of pulp novels, sending them skittering to the ground, and in front of him, Aziraphale snorted impatiently.

“Have a care, won't you?” he asked. “I like those books better than I like you.”

Crowley had reached for the pile to try to right it, and straightened up with a wince, one volume still in his hand.

“You like these books better than you like anything,” he said, following along. “And if you're going to be like that, I'm going home.”

The idea of his fashionable flat in Mayfair, he realized, made him ill. There was no hiding there, not with its pristine surfaces and empty silence. Heaven, when it wasn't contacting him through radio broadcasts and television shows, knew very well how to use his landline. You could see the whole of London through his flat's tall windows, and it felt – had felt for some time now – that the whole world could see right back.

Unexpectedly, Aziraphale turned around to face him. Crowley wondered if he caught a moment of fear in Aziraphale's face, something almost panicked, before it resolved into Aziraphale's normal expression of pique and irritation.

“I want you to stay.”

“Why?”

They both cringed back. It was too much, that single word like a snake that had crawled up his throat and slithered out between his lips. Now it lay writhing on the ground between them, and they both looked at it appalled.

Aziraphale gave him a dire look as if to say _we didn't_ have _to talk about your habit of spitting snakes today,_ but he shrugged.

“I find I like the look of you like this.”

“Just dead sexy, yeah?” asked Crowley, suddenly angry. “Why don't you tell me what it is you like about me so much right now?”

If he had thought it would make the demon back down, he was wrong. Aziraphale tilted his head to the side, smiling coldly.

“All right. I like the way you can barely hold yourself together. I like how obvious it is you were crying. I like how that dress fits you, now that it's been yanked half down. I like the misery and the self-hatred and the rage and the doubt and-

“Stop.”

Crowley only whispered the word, but Aziraphale did, immediately, or at least, he paused before he continued in the same mild tone.

“I like it so very much that I'll pay to keep you here, just for me to see.”

Crowley swallowed hard. He had played this game before, the attention and care he craved from Aziraphale weighed against what might actually be a seduction with a very long fall at the end. He could never ever say for sure whether it was care or or a temptation, and he suspected that Aziraphale couldn't either.

“What will you give me?” he asked, his throat dry.

“A favor. A blessing, let's say. You're meant to be going to Rome next month, aren't you? I'll take that one. You can stay home and putter about with your blessed plants.”

“You _hate_ Rome,” Crowley said, and unexpectedly, Aziraphale showed him his teeth, the real ones.

“Yes, but I do like the way that man's spend is dripping down your legs. You're gorgeous like this, my dear, used and desperate and leaking....”

Crowley stumbled back, dazed with the pain of it and scoured at the same time. He could hear the pleasure and the lust in Aziraphale's voice. He might have landed on an extremely uncomfortable stack of encyclopedias if Aziraphale hadn't come forward to steady him, his hands on Crowley's shoulders.

“Let me,” Aziraphale hissed urgently.

“Yes, yes, all right, fine.” Crowley mumbled, and his knees buckled slightly, putting him right into Aziraphale's arms. For a moment, he thought Aziraphale was just going to drop him, but instead the demon took a firmer grip on him.

“ _Silly_ thing,” Aziraphale said at a normal volume, and helped him the rest of the way towards the back.

The bathroom was clad in dark green tile, and as the tub filled with hot water, Aziraphale nodded at his dress.

“Can you bear me for a moment?” he asked, and Crowley stifled a laugh because he thought that if he started this time, he might not be able to stop.

“Yeah, all right.”

He leaned against the sink, his hands on the cool porcelain, his back slightly arched so that Aziraphale could work the zipper a little more easily. Crowley watched in the mirror as Aziraphale's face appeared over his shoulder, eyes flickering up and down his form before he schooled it to caustic indifference again.

So very easy to trigger the demon's prey drive, Crowley thought idly, and a strange kind of recklessness came over him as the zipper slid down. When Aziraphale would have lifted it over his head, Crowley pulled it down instead, letting it fall to his hips and then pushing it to the ground. As flat as he usually preferred, he didn't bother with a bra, and he'd lost the panties earlier anyway, so he was bare in front of the demon, showing him what he had said he liked best.

Aziraphale made a disapproving noise, tapping Crowley's ankle with a finger as he bent to retrieve the dress.

“Step, please, and out of those ridiculous heels as well. Surprised you haven't broken your ankle in those.”

Crowley did as he was told, the world shifting a little as he stood level. He was still taller than Aziraphale, but only just now, and he watched bemused as Aziraphale shook out his dress and hung it neatly on a hook in the back of the door. There was a kind of determined indifference to Aziraphale's motions for all he had spoken of liking Crowley like this. He was too much an old campaigner to look delicately away even when Crowley turned towards him, and Crowley suddenly wondered what would happen if he reached for him, hit him again, slapped him, kissed him. It all felt of a piece now, each as likely as the rest.

“Don't,” Aziraphale said, turning from him.

Crowley watched as Aziraphale added a measure of oil to the water, and then turned to hand him into the tub. The demon's hand was dry, the nails bitten to the quick, and Crowley noted that Aziraphale's touch didn't linger a moment more than he had to. The water steamed, turning Crowley's fair skin red almost immediately, but he submerged himself to the chin. He carefully cleaned his lip and the other scrapes he'd acquired, only glancing up at Aziraphale once his muscles had started to unknot.

“Like the show?”

“I've seen better than a disgraced angel,” Aziraphale said, who had summoned a chair from the front room and taken a seat beside the tub. He was perusing a thick book, something battered and leather-bound and probably ridiculously pricey before it fell into his hands..

“I'm not disgraced at all,” Crowley said, aware of how petulant he sounded. “I was on orders, wasn't I? Doing my bit.”

“Looked like a disgrace to me,” Aziraphale said easily. “Looked a rape. Looked humiliating.”

Crowley shivered, sinking down deeper into the water. Why did he keep provoking the demon and then being surprised when the demon was provoked?

“Read to me?” he asked instead of arguing it.

“ _Her face was crimson to the roots of her hair, as her hand grasped my tool, and her eyes seemed to start with terror at the sudden apparition of Mr. John Thomas; so that taking advantage of her speechless confusion –“_

“All right, no, stop. I hate that. I hate you.”

Aziraphale laughed at him.

“Good.”

Crowley lay back in the tub, sulking a little. He didn't know why he bothered, really. He focused on the small hurt of it, ignoring the rest even as he scrubbed the grit from his limbs, even as his hands faltered a little when they drifted too close to the center of his corporation.

“I don't think you like me at all,” he declared.

“Of course I don't. No proper demon likes angels.”

“You're not much a proper demon, are you?” asked Crowley snidely. “The worst you've done recently is tell people how that bloody boy wizard series ended. S'been more'n a decade.”

“People are still upset; it counts. And I beg to differ, my dear. The worst I've done recently is smash a man to bits in an alleyway.”

“Oh yes, so very wicked of you, hurting a...” He trailed off.

“Of course that man was just fine, wasn't he?” said Aziraphale, not looking up from his book. “A good and proper soul, doing nothing that would make Heaven bat an eye, hurting no one of any account.”

“Aziraphale ...”

“Therefore, what I did was properly demonic. Therefore, I fulfilled my purpose in the Great Plan, the bringing of pain to the righteous. Therefore, shut your mouth, angel, before I shut it for you.”

Crowley splashed some water at Aziraphale, who didn't respond at all, and continued cleaning himself with a rough and hurried touch. That bit of irritation got him through it, and soon enough, he was reaching forward to pull the plug on the soiled water, letting it drain away as he stood.

“Towel,” he said imperiously, and Aziraphale rolled his eyes, giving him a hand to balance as he stepped out of the tub and then wrapping him in an impressively soft and fluffy towel. Crowley blinked when Aziraphale briskly rubbed him dry, starting from the crown of his head and working his way down. He could feel the demon's hands through the terrycloth, but Aziraphale was assiduously refusing to meet his eyes, concentrating on what he was doing. They were close enough that Crowley wondered what it would be like if he leaned forward, and whether Aziraphale would be more offended by a kiss or a bite.

Aziraphale dried his chest without a pause, but he hesitated with the towel around Crowley's narrow hips.

“You can't change that out, can you?” he asked quietly.

“As you so kindly pointed out, I'm out of miracles. Spent my last on penny-candy and condoms, don't know what I was thinking.”

They were both quiet, weighing the cost. Crowley played fast and loose with his own miracles, as spendthrift as Aziraphale accused him of being. Aziraphale had rather stricter accountants who kept their books with flaming whips and iron claws, and now he frowned, human teeth biting his lip.

Crowley knew that he should have been satisfied with what Aziraphale had given him already. It was more than he had any right to expect, but he had to swallow the urge to ask for more.

“Oh for the love of – I'll just tell them I thought it was funny,” Aziraphale growled. “What do you want?”

Crowley deliberated for a moment, because it was a choice, and he liked those.

“Cock, please. And don't get clever with it.”

“Finally,” muttered Aziraphale, shaking his head. “What a foolish thing you are.”

Crowley turned his face aside as Aziraphale reached down between his legs, taking a rough hold.

“Come on, be nice,” he whined, and Aziraphale glared at him.

“How many times must I tell you, demons are not nice,” he growled, a thrum of bass in his voice. “Demons do not do favors for angels. _Demons_ –“

Crowley clung to Aziraphale's shoulders, whose fingers dug tight into the heat between his legs. It wasn't pain, but it burned clear and clean, and he ducked down to press his face against Aziraphale's chest.

“Tell me to stop if it's too much for you,” Aziraphale said tersely, and Crowley shook his head, mute and needing more than anything else for it to be done, not stopped.

By the end, he was hanging on Aziraphale for dear life, dripping bathwater onto the tiles, mouthing soft words against the demon's shoulder that he would deny hotly ever saying. Then it was done, and Aziraphale pushed Crowley back, absently raising the hand he'd used to his mouth and licking it clean.

“You're disgusting,” Crowley muttered, drying himself off the rest of the way.

“I don't know why you sound so surprised,” Aziraphale said, and there was something tired about him now, cranky, drowsy, simply heavier than he had been earlier. “We've been together for thousands of years. You ought to know me by now.”

Crowley kept some clothes in a rickety drawer in the bedroom. As he dressed, he inspected what Aziraphale had done and found it satisfactory. It was nice- competent, not too dissimilar from what he would make for himself. It helped put a little distance between what he was and what had happened, anyway, and he took a steadying, relieved breath. He realized absently that Aziraphale had healed his lip too, sometime in the middle of it.

When he was dressed again -barefoot though, have to remember to bring some shoes over next he thought of it – he came out to find Aziraphale reading in the front room, a stormy frown on his face. There was an uncorked Shiraz on the table next to him, and Crowley poured himself a generous glass. He sipped it, restlessly wandering the room. He felt calm now, too calm, and when he was done with the wine, he had to resist the urge to shatter the glass in the empty hearth. Instead he carefully set it on the mantle and made his way back to Aziraphale.

“Hey,” he said, and when that got no response, he flicked the back of the book.

Aziraphale glared up at him, eyes nearly black in the dim light.

“Oh, you're still here,” he said ungraciously, and Crowley felt something in him snap.

He counted to ten, and then under the demon's hostile eye, he did it again. Then he realized that no amount of _counting_ was going to get rid of the tearing scream inside him, and he knocked the book out of Aziraphale's hands.

“Crowley –!”

“Don't ignore me,” Crowley hissed. “Don't you _dare_ ignore me.”

“As if anyone could when you are acting such a brat!”

“Oh that's rich coming from you, you pitch a fit whenever they don't have your favorite tabloids down at the corner shop.”

“Well, I'm certainly not going to be politely quiet about it if I can't read up on how Meghan and –“

He made a garbled sound when Crowley swung up to straddle his lap, knees jammed awkwardly on either side of Aziraphale's thighs, hands fisted in Aziraphale's clothes to prevent him from pushing him clear.

“Well?” Crowley demanded.

“Well, what?”

“Well, here I am, demon. You liked the look of me fucked in that dress so much? You liked the taste of me after the night I've had? Prove it. Come on.”

Aziraphale stared at him angrily, and Crowley continued.

“Or maybe you want to kick me back out in the rain, after all. Are you sick of me, Aziraphale? Can't understand why you keep me around if you're so sick of the sight of me. Why not? Right out the door, wouldn't be the work of a moment for a strapping demon like you.”

“Be quiet,” Aziraphale growled, a rumble under his voice that hadn't been there before. “Just shut your blessed mouth, Crowley, before I-”

“Before you what? _What?_ There has never been a creature under Heaven more contrary than you, and it's just my luck I'm stuck with you. Just tell me, for once and all, tell me what you want, why you bother your oh-so-fastidious self –

Crowley stuttered to a halt when Aziraphale raised one hand and instead of shoving him away or crushing his skull, simply let it hover within an inch of Crowley's cheek. There was a menace there, but not the kind that Aziraphale usually put out, and Crowley's breath caught in his throat. Aziraphale ran the ball of his thumb over Crowley's cheekbone, delicate, barely there at all.

“Can you imagine, Crowley,” he said, almost casually, “what I might do to you if you simply gave me leave?”

Crowley shifted, aware that there was something curiously sexless about the demon now, or, no, not just sexless, but inanimate. It was as if Aziraphale, far from stretching to the utmost bonds of his corporation, had instead chosen to make himself as small as he could within it, hiding the entirety of his winged and scaled and toothy self within a single bit of bone or a red blood cell, perhaps.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice harsh.

Aziraphale let his hand drop, turning his head slightly.

“You ask me for such stupid things,” he said heavily. “Let that man live. Tell you things you don't want to know. Stop when you don't like what you hear. _Read_ to you. Such foolishness.”

“Then say no to me, demon,” Crowley said, his voice as uneven as broken concrete. “Tell me you don't like it, that you hate it. Tell me for once and all.”

Aziraphale looked up at him silently, the farthest from Hell a demon could get and still burning.

“Say it,” Crowley whispered. “You can, can't you? You're a demon, of course you can. You're a _demon._ You don't care for me. You don't love me. No reason for you to bend to my silly little whims. No reason in all of Her creation for you to come for me when the angels won't, is there?”

Aziraphale was stubbornly silent, and Crowley leaned in, his mouth a whisper from Aziraphale's.

“Tell me _no_ right now,” he said.

Aziraphale snapped his teeth hard. He could break bone with a single bite. If he was a fraction closer, he would have sheared Crowley's lip straight down the center. Crowley didn't even flinch. Instead he only waited, his heart beating somewhere far away, his hands clenched in Aziraphale's shirt.

“You sanctified, sanctimonious little _brat_ ,” Aziraphale snarled. “Do you think I like you too much to hurt you?”

Crowley had come too far for anything besides the truth. They were both of them skilled liars, but he hadn't the energy for it now, or the strength. All that was left to him was the fragile, terrible truth.

“I do.”

He was exhausted after he said it. The thin strength that he had been hanging on broke quietly, without even a snap or a whimper. His anger revealed itself to be nothing more hurt and terror and weariness, and now he slumped forward, chin hooked over Aziraphale's shoulder, resting his weight entirely on the demon. Aziraphale's arm came up to circle over his lower back and hold him steady.

“I could do it,” Aziraphale said, sounding a little panicked now. “I could tear your smirking face off. I could rip you limb from limb.”

Crowley leaned into Aziraphale's body. Like many demons, he ran cold at the extremities, but there was a core of something hot and burning at the center of him, Crowley tucked himself against Aziraphale's belly, trying to soak up as much of that warmth as he could.

“Hm.”

He could a deep rumble going through Aziraphale's corporation, something between an earthquake and a sound of dreadful unease.

“What a _silly_ thing you are -”

“You already said that,” Crowley pointed out. “No repetition, if you please.”

He glanced over to see Aziraphale's nails shredding the arm of the chair, leaving puffs of dusty batting in their wake. He put his hand over Aziraphale's.

“I want to go to bed now,” Crowley said clearly.

“Why? Ready for another round?” Aziraphale asked, but his cruelty rang hollow, and Crowley heard the tongue of fear inside it.

“You could,” he offered. “Could take me upstairs, open me up like your favorite bit of pornography, find all the dirty bits. You could be mean, really shove it in my face how dearly fucked up I am that I'd let you. I don't know if I've many tears left, but I bet I could find some just for you –“

Crowley stopped, pulling back a little in surprise.

“Oh, you're not serious.”

Aziraphale wiped angrily at his eyes.

“Crocodiles are literally known for them, shut up,” he said.

Crowley sighed, still for a moment before he clambered out Aziraphale's lap. What in the world had he been thinking? Spending too much time with Aziraphale had turned him in to a bully. What a nasty thing he was now. The trouble, of course, came when he'd rather be a bully than Heaven's obedient little whore, and he had never seen a temptation worked so neatly.

“Sorry,” he said stiffly. “About the.”

He gestured at his eyes, and then waved to encompass all the rest as well, every time he had asked Aziraphale to act against his nature, every time he had, through manipulation or vulnerability or simply through a plea, gotten Aziraphale to take another step back towards something that no longer wanted him.

Aziraphale didn't look at him, and Crowley nodded.

“Right. I'll be on my way. Sorry. Again.”

He turned to go only to find Aziraphale's hand closed around his, hanging on with something almost like desperation. Crowley opened his mouth, and then he shut it again. He was sick of talking. Talking was how all the trouble had started way back at the beginning. He was sure of it. They never should have started, any of them.

Aziraphale rose from his chair, not relinquishing hold of Crowley's hand, and he led him back to the bedroom, shutting the lights off as they went. The shadows crowded close like friendly cats, turning the room darker than it should have been, too dark even for Crowley, who had excellent eyes. The only thing that guided him at all now was Aziraphale's touch.

A hand reached up to pull at his shirt, two quick tugs and then a pause. Crowley didn't know what Aziraphale meant for a moment, and then he did. He closed his eyes, because he wanted to, always had, but instead he shook his head. Then remembering how dark it was, he laid his hand over Aziraphale's and pushed it away.

_I can't. Bodies are trickier by far than I expected them to be. I'm sorry. I want to. I can't._

The hand reached for his again, this time lifting it to the buttons of Aziraphale's own shirt, and resting them there. Crowley's breath caught on his want, and a small voice in his head suggested that, well, it wasn't _his_ body, was it? It was fine. He could deal with that. He might even have liked it, but he was a long way from being able to like anything right now.

He worked slowly and methodically, ignoring the urge he had several times to snap the demon's clothes away. He'd have some power in him again in a day or so. He could wait. He could do this.

Crowley had none of Aziraphale's delicate touch. He let his fingers graze the demon's body, learned the voluptuous curves of his hips and his belly, the surprising tickle of coarse hair on his thighs. He touched as well the heavy growing cock between Aziraphale's legs, and something in him could have cried at the reality of it.

_I like how obvious it is you were crying. I like how that dress fits you, now that it's been yanked half down. I like the misery and the self-hatred and the rage and the doubt and-_

_Like me better,_ he wanted to shout, but where would they be if the demon did? Then it would be nothing but love, and it'd be over for the both of them.

He let Aziraphale's clothes drop to the ground, and then he was being led to the bed, the covers pulled back for him. When he rolled in, he tugged Aziraphale after him. The sheets were crisp and cool, but they warmed quickly to the two bodies curled together under the covers, fingers tangled loosely, and heads sharing a pillow.

Both of Aziraphale's large hands curled around one of his. The other he placed on Aziraphale's round bare shoulder, and then slid to Aziraphale's back. The transition where the soft skin turned to hard hide was abrupt, like a wound scabbed over. Not for the first time, Crowley traced his fingertips down the length of Aziraphale's back, along the toothy ridges and raised plates that chewed up the demon's clothes so quickly. He knew it came from a blow Aziraphale had taken during the war, just one sweep of the angel Eruviel's sword cutting through muscle, wing, and skin. After the fall, this was what healing looked like.

Aziraphale didn't much like to be touched on his back, not because it hurt, but because it didn't. It felt, he said one drunken night, like nothing at all, just an intimation of pressure without intent. Crowley came to a snag around mid-back, where the plate was almost bisected by an old groove. That was a wholly earthly wound, a halberd swung by a sergeant in the papal army during the Avignon years. That had been a fuck and a half really, and Crowley wasn't sorry at all that Aziraphale had at least part of him that felt like nothing.

He had scooted closer to Aziraphale at some point, and it occurred to him that Aziraphale must have his eyes closed or else they'd likely be gleaming red. Oddly touched, Crowley leaned up to kiss Aziraphale's eyelids, first one and then the other. Aziraphale jerked back, and Crowley came closer. Aziraphale was like a wall of demon between him and the world. He felt underground and hidden. He felt safe, and when the urge came to kiss Aziraphale's mute presence again, he grabbed the blanket and pulled it up over their heads.

He expected Aziraphale to say something, to ask him if he expected to fool God with such a childish thing, but Aziraphale was still. In the suffocating darkness, Crowley pulled Aziraphale into his arms and kissed him again and again and again.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if there are any tags that I have missed! This one's strange enough that I'm up for answering questions if anyone has them. I don't talk much on A03, but I think this one maybe deserves an exception to the rule.


End file.
